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Visual Studio Documentary

Oct. 8, 2009 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

Microsoft's Channel 9 has released a fascinating two-part video documentary of the history of Visual Studio, appropriately titled Visual Studio Documentary. It's an hour long (split into two 30-minute parts) and covers Microsoft's development efforts dating back to MS-DOS, OS/2, and the original version of Visual Basic:

Not only did we sift through hundreds of videos and assets but we sat down for an intimate conversation with those that were there since the very beginning: Scott Guthrie, Dan Fernandez, Jason Zander, Tim Huckaby, S. Somasegar, Dave Mendlen, Dee Dee Walsh, Mardi Brekke, Jeff Hadfield, Alan Cooper, Anders Hejlsberg, and Tony Goodhew.

Part One dives into MS-DOS, OS/2, Windows, Microsoft Visual Basic, Visual Basic 2.0, Visual Basic 3.0, Microsoft Visual C++, Visual Interdev, FoxPro, Visual Studio 97, ASP.NET and the early days of Microsoft's Dev community.

It's available for web viewing, of course, but also in various downloadable formats that are iPod, Zune, and Windows Media Player friendly.

Discuss this Article 6

gavers
on Oct 8, 2009
I'll have to watch this for sure. Just last week I was digging through boxes of old computer software and found my original VB DOS floppies. I recall I using VB DOS mostly to build GUIs to complex command-line programs. It was also a pretty good for building installers and to add some polish to things you could otherwise do with .BAT files.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 8, 2009
FYI: For anyone interested in the history of Visual Basic, the only good history of the Visual Basic 1.0 project I've seen on the web is Scott Ferguson's page at http://www.forestmoon.com/BIRTHofVB/BIRTHofVB.html Scott was the Dev Lead and he, Adam Rauch (Program Management) and Nevet Basker (Product Management) were the leads on the project for the three disciplines. Scott, Adam and Nevet tend not to have spent much time on self promotion but they changed the world and deserve huge thanks from the entire industry. (And, if Scott, Adam or Nevet see this, my "Thunder... The storm is about to break!" desk clock still works and I want to say here in public how much I personally thank you for letting me be a small part of the project)
WazNeeni
on Oct 8, 2009
Why did they label the downloads for iPod & PSP separately? They're the same file/link. I guess it's for the people who don't understand what .MP4 is.
tayme
on Oct 9, 2009
"Scott, Adam and Nevet tend not to have spent much time on self promotion" Now, mikegalos, on the other hand... --tayme
JamesNT
on Oct 9, 2009
You can also view Rico Mariani's recollection of working on Visual Studio on his blog at: http://blogs.msdn.com/ricom/archive/2009/10/05/my-history-of-visual-stud... Paul, You met Raymond Chen, Rico is another person you should probably meet. JamesNT
anonymous
on Oct 14, 2009
Visual Studio Through the Years on Channel 9

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